92 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



■< s 



cxstipiilate leaves articulated at the base. The flowers are solitary, 

 and terminate the short branches' which bear below them a few 

 alternate, more or less sepaloid, bracts. 



Many other lUhljertias, which, like the one we have just studied, 

 grow in Australia, present the same general organi- 

 zation, but with some differences in habit and 

 flower. The stems do not climb, being suffrutescent,- 

 or herbaceous.^ The leaves may be narrow, like 

 those of certain Heaths,^ or dilated below into an 

 imperfect sheath. Hie carpels contain a variable 

 number of ovules,' and are themselves sometimes ten 

 in number (five superposed to the sepals), or even 

 indefinite. In some species the gyna^ceum consists of a 

 single carpel.*^ But in all the stamens and the external 

 staminodes, if present, are arranged in a circle round 

 the carpels, an arrangement which calls to mind 

 the name " Ci/dandra,'''' given to all this section of 



Hihbertia 

 lenuiramea. 



Fig. 131. 

 Stamen. 



the genus Ilibbertia. 



The genus Trimorphandrd has been proposed for a cyclandrous 

 Hihbertia, of which the outer stamens are short and sterile, as 

 in most of the preceding plants ; but some of the inner fertile 

 stamens are longer than the others — a fact which exists in a 



> K. perfoUata, HuG., in PL Preiss., i. 266 

 {Candollea perfoliata Lehm.), often cultivated 

 in our conservatories, has a flower of the same 

 construction as Jf. voluhilis, with the outer sta- 

 mens sterile, and with tive carpels, each contain- 

 ing from two to four ascending ovules. The 

 rajthe is at first exterior, but as the ovules grow 

 the raphes of the adjacent ovules turn towards 

 each other. Besides the fact that the leaves 

 should be noted for their sessile auriculate blades, 

 we must especially notice that in this species the 

 solitary terminal flowers are on long peduncles, 

 but what has been termed usurpation takes 

 l)lace ; the axillary branch being rapidly developed 

 to form a pseudo stem, while the flower becomes 

 very distinctly leaf-ojiposed. This occurs in several 

 other species, though not so decidedly. When 

 there are four ovules in two vertical rows the 

 lower jiair are much the older. Long before an- 

 tliesis they have each an arillary ring round the 

 umbilicus, while the others show no trace of it. 



- This is the case in most of our cultivated 

 species except U. voluhilis. 



•• Like our cultivated If. tfrossulariafulia, its 

 habit h;is been compared to that of Polentilla. 



* Especially in certain species of Pleiirandra 

 cultivated in our conservatories. Several have 

 the aspect of certain SaJsolacece, while others 

 possess a whitish down recalhug that of the Sun- 

 flowers. 



* As in Trisema from a couple to half a score 

 may be counted, but rarely more than this. Their 

 raphes are more or less turned towards one 

 another. 



^ For instance, H. monogyna R. Be. (ex. DC, 

 Prodr., i. 74) which, with the androceum and 

 perianth of the preceding species, possesses but 

 one carpel with one or two ascending ovules in 

 its ovary. This we at one time considered the 

 type of a special section, very near Trisema, under 

 the name "Haplogyne" {Adansonia, vi. 280). 

 But this cannot be maintained as a distinct sec- 

 tion if, following Bentham {Fl. Austr., i. 37), we 

 make H. monogijna only a variety of K. diffusa 

 E. Br. (ex. DC. Syst. i. 429). 



7 F. Mueller, ex. B. H., Gen. 14, n. 13 (4). 

 — Ochrolasia TuECZ., Bull. Mosc, xxii. (1849), 

 ii. 3. 



•^ T. pulrkella Bk. & Ge., mPull. Soc. Bot. 

 xi. 190; Ann. He. Nat., scr. 5, ii. 148. 



